The Stepfather has a very basic plot. A serial killer is roaming the United States going from family to family murdering them. He meets and courts the mother and ingratiaites himself to the rest of the family through fictional tales of a dead wife and daughter and other forms of obvious trickery until they welcome him and he officially becomes “The Stepfather.” Then he goes on a wild killing spree leaving no one left alive.

As predictable and one dimensional as the movie is, it does manage to build up a certain amount of suspense in a few spots and did actually make me jump once or twice which I wasn’t expecting. A movie like this raises the question as to why single moms don’t listen to the concerns of their children when deciding to remarry. This entire film series wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t some truth in the fact that most of time children see things about people that adults don’t. I know from my own personal experience that my mom was completely blind to the fact that my stepfather was a walking waste of human flesh. She finally discovered it 20 years later and luckily he wasn’t a serial killer, although in retrospect I would have loved the excuse to have thrown him off a roof and not gone to jail for it. But I digress.

Sela Ward is perfect as the oblivious-to-what-she-doesn’t-want-to-see mom and Jon Tenney is good, though perhaps a bit over the top, as the concerned-because-he’s-out-of-the-house-now ‘bad guy’ dad. And of course we have Dylan Walsh as the new Stepfather and I’d like to say that while he was super creepy he actually just seemed very confused the whole time. I wasn’t so much scared of him as I was annoyed by his lack of depth. If we were going to get serious about this his behavior requires a serious pathology that I think would be interesting to learn about, but there’s just one very phony level to his performance. Nothing layered or nuanced about it.

The real stars of this movie, and the ones who save it from being a complete waste of time, are Penn Badgley and Amber Heard as newly returned from military school Michael and his girlfriend Kelly. If they weren’t so damn hot there would really be no reason to watch this movie. Everything going on around them is almost irrelevant. They spend the film constantly at the pool or half naked for other reasons fiercely making out. For anyone who is close to that age it’s the perfect example of the way they should be leading their romantic lives and for those of us who have aged out of that group, well, we can think back to how awesome it was to be that young, hot and in love. But oh yeah it’s a horror movie, so

there’s lots of death and screaming too.

The people in the film fill out the stereotypical family of characters my favorite being the tough as nails, suspicious sister Jackie (Paige Turco) and her hot lesbian lover played by the gorgeous Sherry Stringfield of ER fame. Then we also have the nosey neighbor, Mrs. Cutter (Nancy Linehan Charles) and the two barely involved younger kids, Sean (Braeden Lemasters) and Beth (Sklyer Samuels).

The special features on this Bluray include a making of featurette that is basically a meeting of the mutual admiration society where they go on and on about how great Dylan Walsh was and how amazing the movie was. Needless to say I didn’t agree with most of it, but it did include a lot of camera B-roll which is always fun to watch and the interviews with Penn and Sela were interesting. There’s also a feature about the stunt coordination and a gag reel which is always fun, even though this one only had a few actually funny moments it’s interesting getting that sneak peak into the life on set.

So I’m not recommending this to anyone other than maybe a son trying to caution his mother about her new beau or someone who enjoys hot people in a slight amount of peril.

Movie Grade: D+

DVD Features Grade: C+

Overall Grade: C